Original video in Chinese.
Key Takeaway
- DeepWiki is a GitHub project understanding tool that helps developers and enthusiasts fully grasp any project by scanning code repositories with AI and answering questions using code snippets.
- This article emphasizes the importance of understanding code in the AI era, arguing that AI tools can lower the barrier to programming, but you still need a developer’s mindset.
- DeepWiki simplifies the project-understanding process, letting users import a repository directly through the web or by modifying the link, without downloading the code.
- DeepWiki supports in-depth answers and can be combined with Deep Research to provide more thorough analysis.
- I share my own workflow for learning AI projects with DeepWiki and Cursor, and stress that AI tools can enhance personal capability.
I want to recommend a GitHub project understanding tool to everyone: DeepWiki. Whether you’re a developer or an enthusiast like me, you can use it to fully grasp any project.
DeepWiki is very simple to use. The official site already lists a lot of well-known projects. You can pick one from there. For example, Microsoft’s Markitdown.
After opening it, I asked it: how does this project work with an LLM? After receiving the request, DeepWiki scans the entire code repository, including the README documentation and the code related to the question, and then produces an answer.
Look, DeepWiki told me that when Markitdown converts PDF documents, if it encounters an image, it uses the GPT-4o model to generate an image description. Click the source, and you can see the corresponding code snippet on the right.
Honestly, this kind of conclusion paired with code sources is really comfortable. Because when you want to understand a project, what you need is not just a description, a summary, or an abstract answer, but also a look at how the project’s author actually implemented it at the code level.
Show me your code.
Now, as long as you’re willing to think, with DeepWiki’s help, your development skills and your understanding of AI projects will definitely improve dramatically. Just like I said in the community before:
The answers are all there, as long as you ask the right question.
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Back to today’s topic: DeepWiki.
I know some friends will definitely say: I’m not a programmer, so why study this?
Based on my own experience, there are two things I can tell you with absolute certainty:
First, at this stage, if you want to enjoy the AI dividend, you absolutely need to deeply understand AI. And to deeply understand AI, if you can’t read code, or more precisely, if you can’t understand an AI project from the code level, then that definitely won’t do.
If a person, whether a big boss or an investor, can’t read code but is out there talking endlessly about AI, then they’re definitely talking nonsense. They use a few AI tools, then combine that with things they’ve picked up and heard from everywhere, and start misleading people.
There are a lot, a lot of people like this in China.
Second, with AI, the entry barrier for most professions has disappeared. Programming is a good example. A year and a half ago, when I was just starting out, my standard for myself was: I may not be very good at writing, but I must be able to understand it.
As long as I can understand it, I can start from the latest AI projects, understand the project architecture and how the functions are implemented, and even reverse-engineer the author’s thinking.
This really is quite addictive. At one point, I even stopped liking games. With AI’s help, I would break projects apart and study them, tweak things here and there, and see what would happen.
Especially after Gemini 2.5 Pro came out, I would clone the code repository in Cursor, then use this model’s huge context window to help me understand it.
Now, with DeepWiki, this process is much simpler.
I don’t need Cursor; I can do it on my iPad too. Look, just open the DeepWiki page in a browser.
I also don’t need to download the code repository anymore; I can just give DeepWiki the link.
Or, there’s an even simpler method: change github.com in the link to deepwiki.com, and the import will be completed automatically.
During the Q&A process, if you want it to answer more deeply, either turn on Deep Research before you start, or click the Go Deeper button. DeepWiki will spend more time, search more carefully, and give more in-depth answers.
So now I have two tools for learning these AI projects, just like I introduced in the community:
Usually, I use DeepWiki on the iPad. When I have time, I check GitHub Trending to see what new hot projects there are, and then take them into DeepWiki for a detailed look. If something seems interesting, I star it. When I’m back on desktop, I use Cursor to work with it.
These AI tools have helped me a lot. Not only in the specific learning process, but more importantly, they’ve given me very strong confidence:
Now, as long as something doesn’t exceed my intellectual limit, I can learn it.
OK, that’s all for this episode. If you want to understand AI, want to become a super individual, and want to find like-minded people, come join our newtype community. See you next time!